Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/Among the deaths

3054400Once a Week, Series 1, Volume V — Among the deaths
1861Annie Edwardes

AMONG THE DEATHS.

I.

Of fever, in Africa, Richard Brand.”
The words start clear thro’ the twilight gloom:
The Paper drops from her shrinking hand,
And the presence of death fills all the room.

II.

A noble room, where the firelight falls,—
At fitful intervals falls and fades,—
On curtains of silk, on gilded walls,
On gleaming marble, crimson brocades.

III.

She waits alone for her husband’s guest,
Lord Arthur,—he has dined with them often of late.
She waits, in jewels and velvet drest,
As befits her beauty and her estate.

IV.

On her arms and bosom, profusely bare,
Shine the diamonds she bought on her marriage-day.
One red rose rests in the golden hair
With which Richard’s fingers have used to play.

V.

Dead—Richard dead! and she is alone,
In her silk and velvet and jewels here.
O, soft white breast, make never a moan!
O, soft brown eyes, shed never a tear!

VI.

The time for moan or tear is over:
Nor tear nor moan can bring death to life.
What woman need weep for a dead poor lover
Who has honour and station,—a rich man’s wife?

VII.

Honour and station! and Richard dead,
On the fevered shore of that distant land.
No faithful face at his dying bed;
No tender lips on his dying hand.

VIII.

And she loved him—she loved him! The poor false heart
For a moment bursts out with one honest cry.
For a moment the actress forsakes her part:
The woman returns to the love gone by.

IX.

And with him once more, in the purple light
Of the summer evening, she takes her place;
Where the starlit heaven o’er the moor shines white,
And all her heaven is on Richard’s face.

X.

His arm is round her; she feels his kiss;
And her trembling breath comes thick and low
With the familiar foolish bliss.
The freshness, the passion of long ago.

XI.

What has she now? Her husband’s name;
Settlements; diamonds; five hundred friends
To come to her parties; her beauty’s fame;
Lord Arthur’s homage. And so it ends.

XII.

No; something more. Far away, up-stairs,
Are her children. She sees them every day,
I believe;—but with so many vital cares
Of dances and dinners, what are they?

XIII.

Perhaps, in a different station, other
And humbler duties had lain to her hand.
She might have had leisure to be a mother
If she had married Richard Brand.

XIV.

But all that is over. Years ago
She sold herself freely—body and soul—
For the things that she holds in possession now;
And the sale was a wise one,—on the whole.

XV.

When Richard last held her to his breast
Her lips were stainless, her heart was true;
And now—and now—well, let that rest.
Richard is dead: let the past die too!

XVI.

Let the past die. The present is all.
Lord Arthur’s step is upon the stair.
After dinner the opera and the ball;
This folly will surely not haunt her there.

XVII.

With a strange wild beauty her cheek is red;
With a strange wild lustre her eyes are bright;
But still the silent face of the dead
Looks full in her face that weary night.

XVIII.

And still, amidst music and whispered sighs,
Thro’ her soul goes a shuddering under-breath,—
Better be Richard Brand where he lies
Than sunk in the slough of a living death!”

The Author ofMorals of May-Fair.”